Covenant Community Capital

Sudden costs can derail your savings plan temporarily. It can be frustrating to see your hard-earned savings disappear when an unexpected expense comes up. But with good planning and savings habits, you can get back on track quickly.

This course helps you identify the most common reasons you’ll need your savings, outside of a down payment for a home, and ways that you can reduce your risk and exposure. For example, we cover:

• Preparing for emergencies
• Making major purchases, such as vehicles and appliances
• Saving for future needs

It's really important to know your future major expenses, and to start saving early. We help you adjust your savings plan to better understand what expenses are just down the road, and how much they will cost.

Preparing for Emergencies

There are so many reasons to reduce your debt and save as much money as possible, but none are more important than preparing for an emergency. Even when an emergency is covered by insurance, it can still require cash for an insurance deductible. Here are a couple of unexpected expenses that we help you anticipate:

• Storm and water damage to your vehicle and other property
• Health emergencies that are not covered by insurance
• Family emergencies
• Unexpected vehicle repairs

Since we are located in a tropical storm region, Houstonians have to prepare for natural disaster emergencies. No one likes to think about the worst that can happen, but effective planning will help prepare you just in case.

Understanding Your Major Purchases for the Next Few Years

It’s easy to forget about other major purchases until they are right around the corner. Oftentimes, they sneak up on us at different times of the year, ready to eat up your hard-earned savings. We help you anticipate these major purchases and plan for them. Some examples include:

• A replacement vehicle
• New appliances, such as washer/dryer, refrigerator, or HVAC equipment
• A new computer or cell phone
• New clothes

As we dig into these purchase areas, we’ll discuss whether it makes sense to pay out of your savings or to judiciously use credit. We will evaluate various credit options and help you better understand the true cost of financing these purchases. Finally, we’ll schedule out all of the various “unexpected” major purchases so you can put together an annual spending plan.

Saving for Future Needs

It’s exciting to think about the future. In fact, that’s something every Covenant Community Capital client has in common: they aspire to own a home. But with so many expenses on the horizon, it can seem like a pipe dream sometimes. That’s why the last part of our Planning curriculum focuses on future needs.

Who knows what comes next? We cover some of the most common life changes, and the expenses associated with them, such as:

• New additions to your family, from pets to children
• Going back to school and earning a degree
• Being a resource for a loved one in a financial crisis

While it’s impossible to predict the range of future expenses you will encounter, smart financial planning will take these variables into account.